Harvey Morrison's mother says any inquiry into his case should 'uncover everything it needs to'

Vivienne Clarke

Gillian Sherratt, the mother of Harvey Morrison, the nine-year-old who had scoliosis and spina bifida who died in July, has said that any inquiry into her son’s case should be “wide enough” to “uncover everything it needs to uncover” and that “people can be held to account.”

Ms Sherratt told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that the “type of inquiry” had not yet been “set in stone.”

“What they have committed to is that there will be an inquiry into CHI, spina bifida and scoliosis care and that the terms of reference and the scope of that will be up to the parental advocacy groups and the parents actually using the service," she said.

"It would be our opinion that it should be a public statutory inquiry because we need to ensure that it is comprehensive and wide enough to uncover everything it needs to uncover and that people can be held to account.”

Harvey had waited years for spinal surgery. During this time, the curve in his spine went from 75 degrees to 130 degrees. It emerged last year that Harvey had been removed from CHI’s urgent scoliosis surgery waiting list, without his family being informed.

When asked what kind of inquiry the family wanted, Ms Sherratt said, “My opinion so far is that the care for these children is like a puzzle and so far they've only been looking at pieces through these reports and these reviews rather than looking at it as a whole and it's like while they're focusing on one area, there's failings in another.

“This has been a systemic problem going back years. We've seen that from the unpublished, what's now known as the Orphan Report, where these children have actually been harmed. It's not even that they just didn't get care, they've been physically harmed by the lack of care. And if they don't go back far enough and they don't go wide enough, we can't uncover everything that needs to be uncovered for these children to give accountability, to give transparency.

“I think they're promising things that should hopefully make the services better going forward, but we can't forget about the children that have been failed in the past.”

Ms Sherratt said that neither Simon Harris nor the current Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeil,l had any new information to add in relation to why Harvey had been taken off the urgent surgery list last year.

“They didn't have any new information to add in relation to that. I don't think they themselves have that information. We've tried repeatedly to get that information from the task force that was set up, but to this day we still have no more information as to why he was removed or who made the decision.”

The meeting had gone well, she said.

“We felt like there was a lot that needed to be said. We went into it, and we very much asked that they just allow us to speak because we've been trying to get this meeting for so long. We've had a lot that we've needed them to actually hear.

"We felt like they did listen, but at the same time, there have been previous promises from government and from ministers that haven't been met. So we're cautiously optimistic after it, but I do feel like they listened. Whether or not that will bring around the changes that we need to see is a different story.”

The former Minister for Health, Simon Harris, who had promised that no child should have to wait longer than four months for scoliosis surgery, has “failed upwards”.

“I feel like if I was in a job where I was continuously not meeting my targets, I wouldn't be promoted. I would likely be let go.”

Ms Sherratt said Harvey’s family would continue to advocate for others in his honour.

“That's ultimately one of the reasons why we are more focused on getting an inquiry and getting the changes that we need, because ultimately, Simon Harris resigning doesn't help these children. While it might be something that we would call for. It does nothing to benefit the children that are still relying on the state and relying on Children's Health Ireland and the HSE to help them. So that needs to be our priority and that needs to be our focus.”